Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Cuba's spies and our interests

Two Americans are arrested and charged with spying for Cuba, and there are calls for the Obama Administration to stop any developments in relations with that country.

I’m reminded of other big espionage cases and the responses that followed from the United States and other countries.

Like when it was discovered in 1985 that the Soviets had placed listening devices throughout the U.S. Embassy building in Moscow while it was under construction – “It’s nothing but an eight-story microphone plugged into the Politburo,” Congressman Dick Armey said – or that in 1987 the Soviets had compromised a U.S. Marine guard at our embassy in Moscow.The Reagan Administration of course responded by breaking off diplomatic relations, President Clinton restored them, only to break them off again when it was discovered that the Russians had bugged a conference room in the State Department.

Or when the United States arrested Jonathan Pollard in 1987.Pollard was working as a naval intelligence analyst, and he was also passing military and intelligence information to Israel.We all remember that the United States downgraded diplomatic relations and cut off economic and military aid to Israel for several years.

And more recently, there was the case of the Chinese presidential airplane, a Boeing 767 that had been refitted in the United States.When the Chinese government discovered in 2001 that listening devices had been placed throughout the aircraft – even in the headboard of the presidential bed – they kicked our ambassador and half our diplomatic staff out of Beijing, and relations went into a deep freeze for five years.

CORRECTION: The espionage stories above are all true, as the links will show.The parts about the governments’ responses, I made those up.

In fact, President Reagan was under pressure to put relations with Moscow in the deep freeze, but he resisted firmly.As TIME reported in 1987:

But Reagan and Shultz would not accede to a Senate resolution calling for the Secretary to postpone his Moscow trip until security problems were resolved. Shultz conceded that the espionage throws a “heavy shadow” over U.S.-Soviet relations. But Reagan declared, “I just don’t think it’s good for us to be run out of town.” The Administration’s priority, he told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, is the “pursuit of verifiable and stabilizing arms reduction.” The President even repeated his invitation to Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to come to the U.S. for a summit: “The welcome mat is still out.”

Cuba’s intelligence services are good at what they do, they are patient, they play for the long term, and as this AP story points out, their modus operandi makes it particularly difficult to find their agents.The accused spies Walter Kendall Myers and Gwendolyn Myers (profiled here in Saturday’s Washington Post), who have pleaded not guilty, did not work on Latin America and their friends have been quoted saying they can’t recall them ever talking about Latin America.Kendall Myers apparently helped Cuba through his job as a high-ranking State Department intelligence official covering Europe – a post where he had access to intelligence products of all kinds, including those about Cuba.The most interesting information I have seen is in the criminal complaint (pdf) on the Herald’s website.The New York Times reported on Saturday that the Myers were under investigation for three years, but I have seen no reporting that explains what triggered the U.S. government’s suspicions.

Cuban espionage against the United States (and, one presumes, U.S. espionage against Cuba) is a fact of life.

So is the fact that Cuba is a next-door neighbor, like it or not.Cuba is a source of migration to the United States and has been the source of migration crises, its territory can be used to smuggle drugs to the United States, and it’s a place where in the years ahead, offshore oil drilling could go wrong and the Gulf Stream would turn a Cuban spill into a Florida beach disaster in about four days.

Either it’s in our interest to ensure that migration from Cuba is safe and legal, or it’s not.Ditto for drug interdiction and protecting the marine environment.It’s fair to debate, if the Obama Administration one day proposes collaborating with Cuba on these subjects, whether the Administration’s ideas will produce results.But like it or not, the only government with which to engage on these issues is in Havana.

Declining to engage with Cuba on specific issues that affect U.S. national interests – as President Reagan demonstrated when he defended his engagement with the Soviets – will do nothing to stop Cuban espionage, but it would ensure that we leave those interests unattended.The only defense against the world-class intelligence service of this neighboring country is relentless counterintelligence.

45 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Phil,

Do you think that the Cuban government can justify its depiction of CURRENT US aggression based on the intelligence that they may have gotten from the Myers or that they did get from Ms. Montes? (Because if there is a secret plan to invade Cuba tomorrow lots of people on both side of the Strait of Florida would be interested in knowing about it.)

Vecino, we don't need classified documents to verify current US aggression. We have economic strangulation, we have Helms-Burton, we have the Adjustment Act. We have the everyday actions of the USIS, coupled with the (covert and non-covert) resources devoted to the policy of regime change. We have the continued absurd designation of Cuba as a terrorist nation - and all the legal avenues of aggression that lets loose. We have the story of the Cuban 5. We have 50 years of history. Surely there is a back-up secret invasion plan somewhere, but US aggession extends far beyond that.

Let's continue the war then! Let the Cinco, Myers, and everyone else become martyrs for the Cuban side, and let another group become martyrs for the US side!

Unless ... we are willing to admit that sure the Cubans allegedly scored a run with the Myers, but this sort of thing is not helpful in building better relations. It's time for both sides to sit down and pay attention to each other's concerns. That's called negotiating as Mr. Shatner would have us believe.

The Myers were allegedly recruited under President Carter. The same President Carter that is supposed to be the best US President that the Cuban Government could have wished for according to one of the Comrade Fidel's recent reflections. This was not helpful to good relations back then, and it's not helpful to good relations now. It would not be surprising that the Myers were fingered on purpose by a hardliner in the Cuban government who is interested in torpedoing any talks right now. Who knows!

Peters, at last off the fainting couch! And still drawing the wrong conclusions. Let me tell you what is in the United States "interest" Peters: a free and democratic Cuba. Everything else is thinly disguised apologia for a decrepit 50-year-old dictatorship.

"Either it’s in our interest to ensure that migration from Cuba is safe and legal, or it’s not."

Yeah, Phil! Don't listen to those silly quibblers who claim the Cuban government had any anything to do with planning past "immigrant offensives." After all, its not as if the National Revolutionary Police in 1994 just stood there, with folded arms, as thousands of rafters set off from the from the Malecon toward Florida!

notwithstanding all the good and bad on both sides of the florida stratis, as an american, you cannot defend, minimize or try to explain away the espionage of our country by another country.

i dont defend many of our policies, and i dont defend all of the acts of our government, but for god's sake, the cuban government has penetrated the US govt up to its throat starting at the anus and you cant find in your to abhor it, when the repercussions can imperil your country? come on, wake up.

vecino de NF says, "It would not be surprising that the Myers were fingered on purpose by a hardliner in the Cuban government who is interested in torpedoing any talks right now. Who knows!"

i brought this question up in the the prior blog post, that is, why now and who brought this about. from reading the indictment, it is clear that investigation started quite some time ago, at least 3 years ago. these spies were identified and neutrazlied; in fact, they were rather dormant. so why arrest them now? could it be that the US intel services purposefully sabotaged the negotiations. this needs to be explored and i would appreciate the readers' comments.

On the timing of the arrests, we'll never know. It could be hard-liners in the bureaucracy hoping to scuttle things or Administration hawks seeking an upper hand in forthcoming talks. Or it could be coincidence. Although coming on the heels of a historic US diplomatic defeat at the OAS (on Cuba) and right before the Cuban Five Supreme Court consideration, it certainly seems legitimate to wonder (as Fidel did). In addition, the US usually waits to pounce on a spy until the last possible minute (Montes because of the Afghan War).

Spying against America is going to happen - even by "friends" like Israel. We spy extensively against allies in Europe, never-mind countries we don't like. The CIA has a brand new well-funded Cuba desk to go along with a storied history of anti-Cuba spycraft. You certainly can't "abhor" a practice we expect our own Government to engage in on our behalf. Do you not expect the Cubans, who have been subject to 50 years of US aggression, to not respond with some espionage? If you want to end Cuban espionage, the answer is to begin talks and lower the hostilities.

Anon 8:30, don't you see that the only way to assure Cuba will not harm the US, using migration as a weapon, is to have a sensible migration agreement? Unfortunately, it took that crisis in 1994 for the Clinton Administration to understand that. Things have been much better since the agreement that followed.

And when I answer points that have been raised as questions to our host, I don't mean to step on his toes or answer for him. I am giving my opinion on issues that I want to respond to. The same is done to things I say all the time.

For a while I thought you and Gwen were being held incommunicado. Or do the imperialists allow prisoners to have access to the Internet in the D.C. Jail?! Can you believe how decadent those fascists have become?

Whatever. Use any tools available to keep posting on Phil's blog, Agent 202! Your Mission is to continue using any means possible, even from the D.C. Jail, to undermine the Empire for the glory of the First Free Territory of the Americas.

And don't worry, Walter/Lefty, after the massive propaganda campaign we are putting together in Havana, the outraged Yanqui masses will soon demand your release, and all of these silly "accusations" against you and Gwen will be dismissed. When that happens, at long last you and Gwen can get back on your yacht and make your long-planned voyage to your true Homeland, where (rest assured, Comrade), you will be greeted in exactly the same manner as the Five Heroes will be when they return in Triumph!

the defense of and/or indifference on this blog to espionage conducted against the United States is appalling. I'm sure that's the same mindset that drove the traitors to do what they did. It's a good thing probably 99.9% of Americans abhor treachery or we as a country are in big trouble.

In the "just and wonderful" Cuba these scumbags would have been shot agianst the wall outright after a 3 day trial. In the mean imperialist USA, they will be sent to jail where will have Internet access to send congratulations to the Revolution on the 26th of July anniversaries, and they will write a book about their exploits and make millions. Thank God in Chile we had a great leader Augusto Pinochet who knew how to deal with the likes and scum like Leftside and his kind and sent them to the place where rightfully belong with a quick dispatch: To Hell. What a shame you were not fortunate enough to have a person like him in Cuba. Batista was a wimp who could not even defend himself.

The Myers have just been denied bail. Already we see the hypocrisy. Ben-Ami Kadish, the Israeli spy that was guilty of far worse crimes than what is alleged against the Myers, was allowed out on bail (and then walked free after his trial).

And if someone (who just threatened me with death) thinks convicted spies are given internet privledges in the US they are sorely mistaken. Some Federal prisons are experimenting with allowing email to family members, but it is still very rare and certainly does not apply to convivted spies. California does not allow it at all, at least not at the medium security facility I visited last year.

Is your 11:55 AM contribution what Cuban Intelligence pays you to write? Sometimes reading the responses in this and other blogs, reminds of the letter section of Playboy or Penthouse (magazines that I assure I peruse for their outstanding writing only ;-)) Fake and made-up!

Sorry Leftside! I want it to make it clear that Sharpshooter and others like him do not speak for me.

Is the judge presiding over the Myers case the same one that presided over the Ben-Ami Kadish case? If not, where is the hipocricy unless your contention is that the federal judiciary brach is not independent of the federal prosecutors.

Vecino, Federal prosecutors make recommendations to the Judiciary about these things. They recommended no bail for the Myers but did not object in the case of the Israeli spy. There is no basis in the law for the disparate recommendations.

"The defendants' hostility to the United States and their admiration for Cuba is well documented," the judge said in his ruling. "It is hard to imagine, with so much at stake, that they would feel any compunction to fleeing prosecution in a country to which they seem to feel such little loyalty."

In his doctoral thesis, he argued that Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing the Nazis was correct. Years later, he would tell students of his admiration for Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess – members of the "Cambridge ring" who betrayed Britain by spying for the Soviets.

Supporting Pinochet is just as bad as supporting Fidel Castro. Military dictatorship is an evil form of government - whether it's rightwing or leftwing - extremism kills, arbitrarily, without sense and/or morals.

Pinochet=Castro=Amin=Pol-Pot=Stalin

Same garbage, different names.

Self determination, liberty and sovereignty - that's what we need in Cuba. That day will come, and no, Fidel won't be "absolved" of his crimes. Neither will Augusto Pinochet.

yes and you wonderful supporters of democracy, whatever that means. and of course the best way to get it is to destroy. and thank god for the moral authority and consistency of America to show us just how important it is to punish countries that are not democratic. no, all they do is let the largest communist country own them. while the smallest gets the stick, the largest gets the gold. hmmm, now that's good hypocrisy.